Review: The Civil War in the South Carolina Lowcountry: How a Confederate Artillery Battery and a Black Union Regiment Defined the War, by Ron Roth.

To read an interview with author Ron Roth click here.

Beaufort, South Carolina was the epitome of the antebellum south. The production of coveted Sea Islands cotton created a community of wealthy, gentile white southerners who lived in their showcase Beaufort mansions surrounded by the slave force that sustained them. As the nation approached the Civil War, Beaufort proved a hotbed of secessionist activity and when the war began the already-established Beaufort Volunteer Artillery (BVA) joined the Confederate forces. At the same time that white Beaufort supported the Confederate cause, the runaway slaves of Beaufort area plantations formed one of the earliest African American units for the Union. Placing the experiences of these two units (one white and Confederate, the other black and Union), Ron Roth gives the reader a localized history of the Beaufort area that is fully contextualized in the larger military, political, economic, and social events of the Civil War.

Roth places the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery (CSA) in comparison with the 1st South Carolina Regiment (USA), in both their military and social experiences, using these two units to demonstrate larger events in the war. While the book does have sections that focus on the military actions of both of these units, that military history is placed in a context that examines how these two vastly different regiments emerged from the same location. That means starting with chapters on the antebellum history of Beaufort to first lay out the dynamics of white society and black slavery in the years leading up to the war. During the war years Roth demonstrates how the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery fit into the larger Confederate cause and how the 1st South Carolina emerged from changes in the United States regarding emancipation and polices to enlist African American men. The narrative extends to the post war period briefly to see how the radical changes brought on by the war extended to Beaufort.

In many ways, Roth’s book is an example of local history done right. He weaves the histories of the BVA and 1st SC together through the entire book, looking at both black and white experiences before, during, and after the war. This is not a case where the majority of the work focuses on one side with one chapter on the other for inclusion, Roth tries to include both perspectives through the entire narrative. He also continually connects the events around Beaufort to larger national events; this is a local history situated in the fuller history of the war, not just a microscope on one area that ignores larger context. There were places in the writing that could use a bit more polish and the transitions between chapters and subjects were choppy at times. The book would have benefited from a section in the epilogue where he illustrated how the experiences of the BVA and 1st SC defined the war; he mentions some of these points in the prologue, but the book would have benefited from more in the conclusion. It was refreshing to see how Roth incorporated a lot of current scholarship into the history of these two units and the experience of Beaufort. He incorporates so much information and so many angles to this history in a relatively short book that a reader will come away with not only an understanding of Beaufort in the war, but of the larger history of the Civil War as well. Roth does a very good job weaving local history and larger context together and gives the reader a look at the war in a location that will be new to many. It is an enjoyable and relatively short read, well worth it for any Civil War reader to pick up.

Dr. Kathleen Logothetis Thompson earned her PhD in Nineteenth Century/Civil War America from West Virginia University, and also holds a M.A. from WVU and a B.A. from Siena College. Her research is on mental trauma and coping among Union soldiers and she is currently working on her first book, tentatively titled War on the Mind. She currently teaches history at several colleges and university and leads tours of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. Kathleen was a seasonal interpreter at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park for several years and is the co-editor of Civil Discourse.